Trashed Tech: Where Do Old Cell Phones, TVs and PCs Go to Die?

Electronic waste is reaching critical mass, releasing toxic chemicals into the environment. The solution? Recycling and toxin-free electrical components

By Larry Greenemeier
Source Scientific American

BROKEN: Discarded electronics can crack during transport or when crushed by garbage trucks, tossed into landfills or incinerated (more of an issue in developing countries), thereby releasing toxic chemicals into the environment.
Courtesy of iStockphoto

Editor's note: This article is the first of two addressing the problems posed by aging electronic devices entering the waste stream. See also, Laws Fail to Keep up with Mounting E-Trash

With the holiday season officially upon us, the hunt is on for the hottest cell phones, flat-screen plasma TVs and video game systems. This seasonal new tech surge will no doubt please gadget lovers, but it will also result in a heap of old electronic devices being dumped into a waste stream already awash in refuse laden with cadmium, lead, mercury and other toxins.

A projected increase in toxic trash—such as analog television sets expected to become obsolete by the end of 2009—has government agencies and environmental watchdogs pushing for recycling options and the use of environment-friendly components in new devices. Still, it's a message that consumers and device manufacturers have yet to take to heart even as more products flood the market.

The electronics industry generates about $2 billion in U.S. sales annually, according to a report ("Management of Electronic Waste in the United States") released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April. The Consumer Electronics Association, an Arlington, Va.–based trade group says that Americans owned some three billion electronic devices in 2005, the latest year for which data is available, despite tossing or recycling about 304 million electronic devices that same year. About two thirds of the discarded devices were still functioning, upping the danger that they would crack during transport or when crushed by garbage trucks, tossed into landfills or incinerated (more of an issue in developing countries), thereby releasing toxic chemicals into the environment.

Two years ago, the U.S. generated an astonishing 2.6 million tons of electronic waste, which is 1.4 percent of the country's total waste stream. Only 12.6 percent of this so-called "e-waste" was recycled. Worse, e-waste is growing faster than any other type of trash the EPA regulates, including medical and industrial waste. Unwanted cell phones, televisions, PCs (including desktops, laptops, portables and computer monitors), computer peripherals (including printers, scanners and fax machines), computer mouses and keyboards amounted to more than 1.9 million tons of solid municipal waste in the U.S.; of that, more than 1.5 million tons were dumped primarily into landfills, whereas the rest was recycled, the EPA says.

A projected increase in sales will add to the growing e-junk pile. The EPA estimates that roughly 283 million PCs will be sold in 2008, up from 255 million this year. And these new computers are pushing the old models out the door at a rapid pace: U.S. residential and business users scrap about 133,000 PCs daily. Cell phones are also quickly becoming part of the waste stream. More than one billion mobile phones shipped worldwide in 2006, according to Framingham, Mass.–based technology research firm IDC—22.5 percent more than the 832.8 million units shipped a year earlier. By 2008, the United Nations Environment Programme (the U.N.'s environmental arm) projects that the number of cell phone users around the world will climb to two billion. Meanwhile, 130 million of these devices are thrown out annually.

Labels: environment